“Potential is a promissory note from the future. We spend it daily—on people, projects, even ourselves—without always asking what it’s really worth.”
We talk a lot about value these days. Market value. Cultural value. Social value. But the one that feels the most dangerous—and the most sacred—is potential.
We build companies, cities, movements, and relationships around what might be.
We fall in love with people not for who they are now, but for who they could become.
We raise capital off of pitch decks, not profits.
In every part of life, we’re assigning worth to futures that haven’t happened yet.
But very few people ever pause to ask:
How much is potential really worth? And who gets to decide?
I. The Financial Side of Hope
I’ve sat in rooms where people raised $10M on a slide deck. No product. No traction. Just a compelling story and the right networks. It’s not a scam—it’s the norm.
This is what venture capital is: a belief engine.
You’re not investing in now—you’re investing in what might be. Optionality. Trajectory. The next unicorn.
But potential in business is never neutral. It’s dressed in Ivy League sweatshirts, polished pitch decks, and proximity to power. We reward people not just for their ideas—but for how much their ambition looks like success.
That means others—often more grounded, more creative, more resilient—get overlooked. Not because they lack potential. But because they don’t fit the script investors are used to betting on.
So we overpay for the obvious, and underfund the underestimated.
That’s not strategy. That’s bias.
II. Social Capital and the Gatekeepers of Belief
Potential gets priced in society, too.
A young woman from a top school is called “promising.”
A young man from Ajegunle with the same drive is told to “be realistic.”
Two kids with the same brain. Two wildly different valuations.
We pretend we’re meritocratic, but we’ve engineered a world where potential is often just recognition dressed up as intuition. We believe in people who make us feel comfortable. Who speak our language. Who mirror our idea of excellence.
So potential becomes a form of privilege.
Some people get to be a “work in progress.” Others have to arrive fully formed or not at all.
III. Relationships as Emotional Venture Capital
Let’s make this personal.
Dating is one of the most emotionally expensive markets for potential. We don’t just fall for who people are—we fall for who we believe they could become.
- She’s a little guarded now, but once she heals, she’ll open up.
- He’s figuring things out, but he’s brilliant. Just give him time.
- We’ve had a rough start, but something tells me this could be it.
This is fine—at first.
But here’s the tension: you can’t build a relationship on a pitch deck.
You need a product. You need traction. You need behavior.
Too often, one partner becomes the investor, the coach, the emotional scaffolding. Meanwhile, the other is still “working on themselves.” And so we mistake effort for intimacy, and potential for partnership.
Eventually, someone checks their emotional bank account and realizes they’ve been the only one funding growth.
IV. What Most People Miss About Potential
Let me be blunt. Here’s what no one tells you about potential:
- Potential depreciates. It loses value if it’s not acted on. Belief without execution just becomes burnout.
- We confuse style for substance. People with charisma, credentials, or the “right story” often get funded over those with real grind and quiet power.
- The ability to fail is a privilege. If you have family money, citizenship, or social capital, your potential gets subsidized. You get to stumble and still be “promising.” Others don’t get that luxury.
- We stay too long in potential-based relationships. Because we’re afraid of being wrong about what we hoped for. But staying doesn’t fix it. Growth does.
V. How We Can Rethink Potential
This isn’t a call to stop believing. If anything, I think belief is the most radical form of action. But it should be disciplined belief—backed by curiosity, accountability, and clarity.
So here’s what I’ve learned:
- In business: Bet on people others overlook. Often, the ones without polish are the ones with fire. Look for pattern-breakers, not pattern-matchers.
- In love: Don’t date someone’s potential. Date their patterns. What they do, not just what they dream about doing.
- In life: Be honest about your own. Your potential is real. But you don’t have forever. Trade hopes for habits.
Final Thought
We’re all speculating on something.
But the future doesn’t belong to those who sell the best story.
It belongs to those who can close the gap between what could be and what is.
So the next time you’re deciding whether to invest—money, time, or your heart—ask yourself:
Am I in love with the future?
Me
Or am I just afraid to confront the present?
Because the world doesn’t need more belief.
It needs better bets.
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- Reflect: Where are you overpaying for potential in your life right now?